Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

She never tired of the miracle. Each time she knelt to "catch" another baby, beloved California mid-wife Peggy Vincent paid homage to the moment when pain bows to joy, one person becomes two, woman turns to goddess, and the world moves aside to make room for one more soul.

Trained as a nurse at Duke University in the early 1960s, Vincent begins working in the delivery room of a local hospital in the San Francisco Bay area. Even after establishing an alternative birth center at the hospital, however, she is still frustrated with her lack of autonomy. Too often she witnesses births changing from normal to high risk because of routine obstetrical interventions.

Vincent then devotes herself to creating unique birth experiences for her clients and their families. She becomes a licensed midwife, opens her own practice, and delivers nearly three thousand babies during her remarkable career.

With every birth comes an unforgettable story. Each time Vincent "catches" a wet and wriggling baby, she encounters another memorable woman busy negotiating her unique path through the labyrinth of childbirth.

Meet Catherine as she rides out her labor in a car careening down a mountain road, her husband clueless at the wheel. Megan delivers on a leaky sailboat during the storm of the decade. Susannah gives birth so quietly and effortlessly, neither husband nor midwife notice much of anything until they see a baby lying on the bed, and Sofia spends her labor trying to keep her hyper doctor-father from burning down the house.

More than just a collection of birth stories, "Baby Catcher" is a provocative, moving, and highly personal account of the ongoing difficulties midwives face in the United States. With vivid portraits of courage, perseverance, and love, this is a passionate call to rethink today's technological hospital births in favor of a more individualized and profound experience in which mothers and fathers take the stage in the timeless drama of birth and renewal.

Review:

Review:

"[A] page-turner....Male readers may find this female-centered narrative off-putting, and mainstream readers might raise eyebrows at the inclusion of children in the birthing process, but Vincent addresses these issues fairly directly herself." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"These stories offer a ground-level view of this evolution and also show areas (particularly liability and insurance) where further progress is badly needed....[I]nspirational and highly informative..." Library Journal

Review:

"[Vincent] has riveting tales to tell....Future doctors, nurses, and health-care professionals, as well as future mothers and fathers, will want to read this warm and informative [book]..." School Library Journal

Review:

"Baby Catcher is a celebration of life, a book of beautiful and passionate stories of birth — and the mothers, fathers, families, and friends who assisted — told by a midwife devoted to more tender and natural childbirth. This is an inspiring, important book." Anne Lamott, author of Operating Instructions

Review:

"Peggy Vincent understands both the miracle and the mystery of birth, and she writes with an enthusiasm that is as inspirational as it is infectious." Chris Bohjalian, author of Midwives and The Buffalo Soldier

Review:

"Baby Catcher is a startling dive into virtual birth reality. When a 'perineal cry' rings out, we nearly drop the book. When contractions knot up, we hold our breath. Page after page, we revel in astonishing new twists to an age-old plot, as Peggy Vincent delivers well-formed stories — and children — into the waiting world." Cathy Luchetti, author of Medicine Women and Children of the West

Review:

"Peggy Vincent's memoir of her career as a nurse-midwife during the last decades of the twentieth century covers everything from her days as an independent home birth practitioner to a shift worker in a high-volume 'birth assembly line' of a huge HMO hospital. It's entertaining, funny, informative, and quite moving." Ina May Gaskin, C.P.M., author of Spiritual Midwifery

Review:

"Author Peggy Vincent paints vivid pictures of what childbirth can be when allowed to be the way it was meant to be, rather than the way physicians say it should be. Scientific data shows that a midwife-attended low-risk birth is as safe — or safer — than a physician-attended low-risk birth. Every woman should grow up knowing that someday she can have her own midwife, and every family should prepare for birth by reading this inspirational book." Marsden Wagner, M.D., M.S.P.H., former director of Women's and Children's Health, World Health Organization

About the Author

In 1980, after fifteen years as a delivery room nurse, ten years as a natural childbirth teacher, and three years as the director of the first alternative birth center in the East Bay, Peggy Vincent became a licensed midwife specializing in homebirths. Five years later, she became the first completely independent nurse midwife to receive hospital privileges in the Berkeley area. She currently lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and teenage son. Her Web site is www.babycatcher.net

Table of Contents

Part I As it was in the beginning 15 You Have to Lie Down 17 Babies, Babies, Babies 24 Mrs. Purdue 31 The Hippie Effect 39 Part II The meditation of my heart 47 Painless Childbirth? 49 To Be or Not to Be 55 Only If You Can Be There 60 Fog 67 Adidas to Birkenstocks 74 Part III The wine of astonishment 81 Rubber Ducky 83 Good News and Bad News 87 We Couldn't Have Done It Without Him 94 Huh? 100 Hallie's Reputation 105 Only What's Necessary 111 The Perineal Cry 116 Part IV Not only with our lips but in our lives 123 Spirit Baby I 125 Practice What You Preach 128 My Little Helper 140 Spirit Baby II 148 When Mom Is a Midwife 152 Part V Who walketh upon the wings of the wind 159 One More Soul 161 Pragmatism in Action 166 Sneak Attack 174 Uh-oh 179 A Friend 185 What Flowers Are These? 191 Labor's Not So Bad 199 Goose Abuse 204 Wall Art 210 It's Just So Interesting 215 Okay, Okay, Okay 220 Is My Mommy Happy? 227 Part VI Devices and desires 231 Wrongful Life 233 Cut Me! 249 You'd Better Sit Down 258 Part VII The measure of my days 261 Guardian Angel 263 Allah's Blessing 270 End of the Drought 276 You Can't Be Serious 284 I Just Forgot 289 Soccer Mom 294 Hello from Rosie 301 A Bitter Pill 304 Happy Birthday 307 Shift Work 311 Passing the Torch 315 Epilogue 323 The Current Situation 325 Appendices I Pearls of Wisdom 327 II Home Birth Supplies 328 III Studies on Midwifery Safety 330 IV Statistics on the Economics of Midwifery 332 V Resources 333 VI Sandi's Famous Caramels 335

"Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"[A] page-turner....Male readers may find this female-centered narrative off-putting, and mainstream readers might raise eyebrows at the inclusion of children in the birthing process, but Vincent addresses these issues fairly directly herself."

"Review"
by Library Journal,
"These stories offer a ground-level view of this evolution and also show areas (particularly liability and insurance) where further progress is badly needed....[I]nspirational and highly informative..."

"Review"
by School Library Journal,
"[Vincent] has riveting tales to tell....Future doctors, nurses, and health-care professionals, as well as future mothers and fathers, will want to read this warm and informative [book]..."

"Review"
by ,
"Baby Catcher is a celebration of life, a book of beautiful and passionate stories of birth — and the mothers, fathers, families, and friends who assisted — told by a midwife devoted to more tender and natural childbirth. This is an inspiring, important book." Anne Lamott, author of Operating Instructions

"Review"
by Chris Bohjalian, author of Midwives and The Buffalo Soldier,
"Peggy Vincent understands both the miracle and the mystery of birth, and she writes with an enthusiasm that is as inspirational as it is infectious."

"Review"
by Cathy Luchetti, author of Medicine Women and Children of the West,
"Baby Catcher is a startling dive into virtual birth reality. When a 'perineal cry' rings out, we nearly drop the book. When contractions knot up, we hold our breath. Page after page, we revel in astonishing new twists to an age-old plot, as Peggy Vincent delivers well-formed stories — and children — into the waiting world."

"Review"
by Ina May Gaskin, C.P.M., author of Spiritual Midwifery,
"Peggy Vincent's memoir of her career as a nurse-midwife during the last decades of the twentieth century covers everything from her days as an independent home birth practitioner to a shift worker in a high-volume 'birth assembly line' of a huge HMO hospital. It's entertaining, funny, informative, and quite moving."

"Review"
by ,
"Author Peggy Vincent paints vivid pictures of what childbirth can be when allowed to be the way it was meant to be, rather than the way physicians say it should be. Scientific data shows that a midwife-attended low-risk birth is as safe — or safer — than a physician-attended low-risk birth. Every woman should grow up knowing that someday she can have her own midwife, and every family should prepare for birth by reading this inspirational book." Marsden Wagner, M.D., M.S.P.H., former director of Women's and Children's Health, World Health Organization

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